What wattage is enough

[Doougin]

Im still a lil new to building and im wondering wat wattage my psu has to be to power an sli rig.

my specs currently are:
-MSI NF750-G55 AM3 NVIDIA nForce 750a SLI HDMI ATX AMD Motherboard
-RAIDMAX HYBRID 2 RX-530SS 530W ATX12V V2.2/ EPS12V SLI Ready CrossFire Ready Modular LED Power Supply
-AMD Phenom II X4 955 Black Edition Deneb 3.2GHz Socket AM3 125W Quad-Core Processor
-G.SKILL 4GB (2 x 2GB) 240-Pin DDR3 SDRAM DDR3 1600 (PC3 12800) Dual Channel Kit Desktop Memory
-Galaxy GeForce GTS 450 (Fermi) SuperOC 1GB 128-bit DDR5 PCI Express 2.0 x16 HDCP Ready SLI Support Video Card
-2 hdds and 1 optical

i plan to add a second of that graphics card and idk if my current psu will be enough and if not wat is.

 

[TemjinGold]

If you're adding another 450, you should be fine but it may be better for you to sell that 450 and just get a better single card.

 

[VirtualLarry]

Be aware that most Raidmax PSUs are genuine crap.

 

[BoomerD]

Be aware that most Raidmax PSUs are genuine crap.

Agreed. Those are near the bottom for quality.

Throw it away and buy a good Seasonic-based PSU.

Raidmax uses a variety of OEM's to build their PSU's, so it's difficult to know for sure who actually built that one, (even Jonnyguru had questions) but it's safe to say, they're definitely not quality built units.

 

[BTRY B 529th FA BN]

If you always stay in the mid-range GPU market, i'd say a 600w to be safe. If you go high end dual GPUs, a 750-800w would cover most everything (depending on the game, too) Most games don't tax the GPUs 100%, Crysis is the exception.

 

[TemjinGold]

Why would it take a 600w to be safe? A 450 is pretty low-end, not mid-range.

 

[BTRY B 529th FA BN]

Why would it take a 600w to be safe? A 450 is pretty low-end, not mid-range.

I am not informed of the habbits of the OP but my suggestion is the worst case scenario. Just as most all Wattage calculators figure.

Now if you have a general idea of how much your system will draw in your case scenario then you can go from there. My rig 3 doesn't see 400w during Unreal Tournament III. If I run furmark, it can go up into the 450w range.

 

[Doougin]

i do quite a bit of gaming and idk how to tell exactly wat wattage each unit is using. i will look into a seasonic tho. on another note i plan on getting a SSD at sometime. wat are your opinions on them and wat companies i should consider.